‘Wait till you’re shot,’ said Father Dennis sweetly.  ’There’s a time for everything.’

Dan Grady chuckled as he blew for the fiftieth time into the breech of his speckless rifle.  Mulcahy groaned and buried his head in his arms till a stray shot spoke like a snipe immediately above his head, and a general heave and tremour rippled the line.  Other shots followed and a few took effect, as a shriek or a grunt attested.  The officers, who had been lying down with the men, rose and began to walk steadily up and down the front of their companies.

This manoeuvre, executed, not for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith, to soothe men, demands nerve.  You must not hurry, you must not look nervous, though you know that you are a mark for every rifle within extreme range, and above all if you are smitten you must make as little noise as possible and roll inwards through the files.  It is at this hour, when the breeze brings the first salt whiff of the powder to noses rather cold at the tip, and the eye can quietly take in the appearance of each red casualty, that the strain on the nerves is strongest.  Scotch regiments can endure for half a day and abate no whit of their zeal at the end; English regiments sometimes sulk under punishment, while the Irish, like the French, are apt to run forward by ones and twos, which is just as bad as running back.  The truly wise commandant of highly strung troops allows them, in seasons of waiting, to hear the sound of their own voices uplifted in song.  There is a legend of an English regiment that lay by its arms under fire chaunting ‘Sam Hall,’ to the horror of its newly appointed and pious colonel.  The Black Boneens, who were suffering more than the Mavericks, on a hill half a mile away, began presently to explain to all who cared to listen—­

We’ll sound the jubilee, from the centre to the sea, And Ireland shall be free, says the Shan-van Vogh.

‘Sing, boys,’ said Father Dennis softly.  ’It looks as if we cared for their Afghan peas.’

Dan Grady raised himself to his knees and opened his mouth in a song imparted to him, as to most of his comrades, in the strictest confidence by Mulcahy—–­the Mulcahy then lying limp and fainting on the grass, the chill fear of death upon him.

Company after company caught up the words which, the I. A. A. say, are to herald the general rising of Erin, and to breathe which, except to those duly appointed to hear, is death.  Wherefore they are printed in this place.

     The Saxon in Heaven’s just balance is weighed,
       His doom like Belshazzar’s in death has been cast,
     And the hand of the venger shall never be stayed
       Till his race, faith, and speech are a dream of the past.

They were heart-filling lines and they ran with a swirl; the I. A. A. are better served by their pens than their petards.  Dan clapped Mulcahy merrily on the back, asking him to sing up.  The officers lay down again.  There was no need to walk any more.  Their men were soothing themselves thunderously, thus—­